Two couples: One from Iran – a doctor and an artist; the other from Southern California – a film editor and an actress.

Drawn together by the most powerful force in the universe, the couples were married Friday in separate civil ceremonies at the wedding chapel at the Registrar-Recorder’s Office in Van Nuys.

“I married for love,” said 25-year-old Studio City resident Melody Tabriz, who was joined with Dr. Amir Tabriz, 29, in their “American wedding” a year after they exchanged vows in their native Iran.

And love – as well as tradition – also was the foundation for Glendale residents Michael James Helm, 32, and Ingrid Beer, 31, who recently found each other on MySpace.com.

“I think we all feel that urge in our hearts. Let’s go back to tradition,” Helm said in describing why the couple chose to be married.

“You know, technology is fine, self-help is fine. All that stuff is fine, but there is something missing. I think on all our parts we almost feel a calling within us to go back to that tradition.”

As the nationwide marriage rate has dropped nearly in half since 1970, the two couples are part of what may be the country’s first uptick in marriages – in Los Angeles County of all places.

As the entertainment capital of the world – famous for the bed-hopping antics of its Hollywood stars – the county trend has experts scratching their heads.

“This is the first increase in marriages I’ve ever heard of,” said David Popenoe, a sociology professor and co-director of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University in New Jersey. “That doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened elsewhere, but it just hasn’t been publicized.

“It may just be starting – a little drift upwards.”

Current trend a sharp contrast

The trend is in sharp contrast to several decades of plummeting marriage rates nationwide, as people have waited longer to marry, more are cohabitating, fewer divorcees are remarrying and more people are staying single for life.

Nationwide, the annual number of marriages per 1,000 unmarried women ages 15 and older fell from 76.5 in 1970 to 40.8 last year, Popenoe said.

But in the recent Los Angeles County trend, marriages have risen – with the number of marriage licenses issued by the Registrar-Recorder’s Office climbing from 56,282 in 2002 to 59,664 last year.

Popenoe suspects the increase may be because of the growing Latino and Asian communities – more traditionally known for family-oriented cultures.

It also could reflect a growing number of children of baby boomers who are moving into their marrying years.

“There might be a slight conservatism among young people compared with their baby boomer parents,” Popenoe said. “But the marriage rate keeps dropping nationwide.

“One of the worst influences … is Hollywood and what goes on with the world of celebrities in which marriage – I won’t say it’s vanished – but it’s certainly fallen on hard times.

“So maybe this trend in L.A. is more indicative of where things are headed. I don’t think 9-11 would do it. You’d need a sort of national religious shift of some kind, religion of some sort in which people began to value long-term stable marriages again in larger numbers.”

The 5.7 percent increase in marriages in the county in the past four years exceeds the 4.4percent growth in the county’s population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

“This is more than an increase in population and immigrant families that respect marriage,” said Randy Thomasson, spokesman for the VoteYesMarriage.com coalition, sponsor of The Voters’ Right to Protect Marriage Initiative targeted for the 2008 ballot.

“This looks like a rebound for marriage coming on the heels of the shell-shocked kids of the divorce generation.

“A survey came out this year that talked about the fragmentation of American society, how people feel so detached. They don’t have as close of relationships as their parents and grandparents had.

“Hey, the human heart hasn’t changed.

“Everyone wants to be loved. God created us this way. I predict marriage will rise in popularity as the `me’ generation departs, the kids-of-divorce generation grows up and the scared generation wants secure relationships more than anything.”

County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke said she thinks the increase in county marriages reflects a growing, more diverse population.

“Certainly, also, the times have changed,” Burke said. “I think for awhile people were trying to discourage marriage and today there is a greater feeling that people want to get married.”

At the Church on the Way in Van Nuys, Executive Pastor Doug Andersen said he has seen a growing number of marriages among the Latino congregation.

`The times

have changed’

Growing hunger

for stability

“There is a growing hunger in our society for stability, commitment and traditional values,” Andersen said.

“I do believe that people recognize that all of the pursuits they have made in life to seek to find happiness on their terms aren’t going to work until they go back to what is traditional on the basis of how God designed marriage to work.”

Portia Sanders, assistant division manager in the Public Records Division of the Registrar-Recorder’s Office, said many people come to California to get married from around the world.

“For some reason, a lot of people like to say they got married in Beverly Hills,” Sanders said.

At the Van Nuys office, Supervisor Tony Rivers said he has seen an increase in couples getting married, even older couples.

“I don’t know if it’s due to that everybody wants to be secure with a partner, or the fact the dating scene has gotten old,” Rivers said.

For the Helms, who are forming their own film production company, the stars aligned Friday as they began their “life journey” together.

The couple met at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts more than a decade ago. Beer had come from Michigan, Helm from Colorado.

Helm said that when he first saw her, he was “completely taken” and mentioned to his friends that she was “the girl you would marry.”

But Beer was dating someone else, and although she and Helm became close friends, they went their separate ways for the next decade.

At a friend’s urging, Beer signed up one day on MySpace.com. So did Helm. They received electronic ads asking them to register with the arts academy they had attended, and they did.

“All of a sudden, I saw her picture and I flipped,” Helm said.

“I wrote her an e-mail and said, `Of all the gin-joints in all the towns in all the world and she walked into this one.’ And the rest is history.”